Select the new GPS/FMS system in the Systems screen of Plane Maker to get it into your aircraft. Two slots are available for pilot- and copilot side. New instruments are available in the panel editor to enable screens of the 430 and 530 for 3d-cockpits.

The old GNS430 instrument is very small, so it is treated based on the size in the panel:

◾If the instrument is given a REALLY SMALL spot (e.g. 62 pixels tall) it draws a compact display with just frequencies – not realistic, but at least readable.

◾If the new instrument is given a BIGGER spot (The cutover is 96 pixels vertically, but authors SHOULD give it the full 240) you get the full instrument layout, and how sharp it is will be a function of the spot size – at 240 pixels tall you get the ideal look.

◾At all times, at any size, you can click on the NEW instrument’s screen in 3-d or 2-d and get a POPUP that runs at full size and full sharpness.

The new GPS navigator reads instrument approaches from a database with near-worldwide coverage which is provided by Aerosoft. Subscribe to Aerosoft Navdata Pro to get monthly updates for all instrument procedures world-wide!

The new GPS navigator also provides a better interaction with HSIs and CDIs in the panel, and allows for more realistic autopilot set-up. Be sure to read the tech notes on http://developer.x-plane.com to understand how to set up your plane correctly.

Playback and analyze your REAL flights in X-Plane!

Xavion is now a Flight Data Recorder!

With ZERO input required from you, Xavion records every flight you make.

Then, with X-Plane you can simply go to the File menu and select IMPORT XAVION FLIGHT to see your real flight… in X-Plane!

This brings flight data recording and visualization from the test pilots and professionals right to you, with a very easy user interface in X-Plane to get and display the data! Fun!

Cloud and Atmosphere Changes

Cloud code has been bug fixed a bit. Notable bug fixes:

◾Fixed the “white-out” bug – no more loss of visibility when near clouds.

◾The transition out of the bottom of clouds should be consistently close to the bases set in the weather screen when you set up a non-stormy stratus system; this is good for practicing ILS break-outs at a specific elevation.

◾Transition into clouds should be less visually jarring.

◾Lighting calculations for cloud puffs rebuilt to look better.

◾Textures shuffled to save VRAM.

This patch changes the scaling of the cloud rendering slider, so you will want to re-tune your cloud rendering settings for optimal framerate on your hardware.

A few notes for cloud-tweakers:

◾The texture layout for clouds may be further juggled during beta; I’ll post notes on the new layout of the textures when they’re finalized.

◾The cloud lighting constants will almost certainly be tweaked.

◾Clouds will be affected by fog changes, which are not complete as of beta 1.

The white band of fog in high-altitude views has been fixed.

Please note that as of beta 1, not all fog-related changes are in the sim yet; TBD whether these make it into a later beta or become their own release as soon as they are ready.

There is now an official override for clouds (sim/operation/override/override_clouds) – setting this to one gets rid of all cloud puffs and white-out; it is no longer necessary to use art controls to replace X-Plane’s built-in clouds. Using this override saves CPU time that would have been spent building clouds and VRAM that would have been spent storing cloud meshes.

Controls for Networked External Visuals

The options for controlling networked computers for multiple visuals have changed in 10.30.

1.In the External Visual tab of the networking setup, there is now just one checkbox to make this machine a networked “slave” and enter the IP address of the master. The controls to make it an extra visual, extra cockpit, or extra anything are located elsewhere.

2.In the External Visual tab of the networking setup, each entry for the IP of an extra visual has a checkbox to determine whether the external visual tracks the view of the master. If this is off, the views are controlled on the slave machine. If this is on, the view is set to be the same as the master, but modified by the view offsets in the Rendering options.

3.The Rendering Options have three choices for the Default view. (The Default view is what you get with the “w” key and is the view that you first get when you load the aircraft.)

4.- forward view with panel (X-Plane’s default)

5.- forward view with scenery only (no HUD)

6.- forward view in the 3D cockpit (with 3D view controls active)

7.The Rendering Options menu has a new checkbox to lock the view to the default. If set, the view will always be the default cockpit view and cannot be changed by view controls or the network master machine.

8.lateral offset can go -9.99 to 9.99, as per customer request

New Art Assets

◾Several enhanced and 38 new textures: an extended set of tropical ones, providing more climatic nuances, enhanced cold-dry regions and some special landuses for HD-sceneries.

◾Autogen library tweaked to avoid having tall buildings on approach paths to airports. For example, KBOS 22L is no longer blocked. This fixes the case where the autogen is “medium density” but the art asset being mapped via the library was incorrectly a tall building.

◾Tweaks to urban terrain textures.

◾A number of DDS files have been re-ground from their PNG sources to improve color fidelity.

Aircraft Conversion from V9

The interpretation of the trim setting datarefs changed from X-Plane 9 to X-Plane 10. The datarefs in question are

◾sim/cockpit2/controls/elevator_trim

◾sim/cockpit2/controls/aileron_trim

◾sim/cockpit2/controls/rudder_trim

In X-Plane 9, the values returned by the datarefs were the trim setting as a fraction of total control surface travel, corresponding to the way trim range was declared in PlaneMaker. In X-Plane 10, the values of the data refs are the trim setting as a fraction of total trim range, meaning the range returned is always +1.0 to -1.0. To compute the actual control surface deflection in degrees, multiply the trim setting by the trim range in degrees.

Fuselage Mounted Speedbrakes – Change in Flight Model

There is a minor change in the flight model for fuselage mounted speedbrakes. Prior to 10.30, only positive extension angles caused drag. As of 10.30, drag is based on the net extension angle, meaning the difference between the current speedbrake angle and its retracted angle. This means that speedbrakes with negative retracted angles (for example, to match a tapered fuselage) will create more drag than they used to. To get accurate drag on deployment, it is important to specify an accurate retracted angle. (You get one degree for free to allow retracted speedbrakes to hide in the fuselage.)

◾If you enter a steering angle in Plane-Maker for a given gear, then that gear is considered to be a wheel that can pivot, not a fixed wheel like a main gear.

◾If you enter a wheel as CASTORING in Plane-Maker for a given gear, then that gear is also considered to be a wheel that can pivot… not a fixed wheel like a main gear.

◾Once a wheel has been defined as one that can pivot (either by entering a steering angle or checking the box that the wheel is castoring), then:

◾If the tailwheel lock is engaged or nosewheel steering is on, that gear will move through the steering angle (which may well be zero for a castoring gear, which simply locks that wheel at zero).

◾If the nosewheel steering is off or the tailwheel lock is off, then the wheel free-castors.

◾So, simply put, by entering a steering angle or “this wheel castors” checkbox in Plane-Maker, you define that wheel as being able to pivot. If the tailwheel lock is on or or the nosewheel steering is on, it will do so through the commanded steering angle… very possibly zero for castoring gear! And once the nosewheel steering is off or tailwheel is unlocked, all such gear will castor.

Plugins and Datarefs

As we modernize X-Plane’s use of OpenGL, the plugin system will start to catch illegal drawing – that is, drawing outside of a drawing callback. If your plugin is drawing at an illegal time, you may see a message in the log with your plugin’s name (and the OpenGL code will not be executed). If you see these error messages but believe your plugin is operating according to spec, please contact us.

Bug fix: Custom operating-system-provided cursors work for plugins. (This feature worked in X-Plane 10.10 and was broken in 10.20.)

Datarefs:

◾The second GPS unit is available – virtually all GPS datarefs have been cloned for GPS2

◾8.33 khz tuning is available on all COM radios

◾All sound preferences are available as datarefs – see sim/operation/sound/.

◾The winch default parameters can be customized – see sim/world/winch/

◾Rotor brake strength can be customized – see sim/cockpit2/switches/rotor_brake_ratio

◾sim/flightmodel/position now has angles both in OpenGL coordinates (useful for drawing, available since X-Plane 6) and in a coordinate system relative to level flight (new to 1030); therefore you can use these new angles to create custom instruments without “jumps” when X-Plane loads scenery.

◾X-Plane’s built-in clouds can be disabled with sim/operation/override/override_clouds

Correct Blended Drawing in the 3-D World

A new dataref lets 3-d drawing callbacks differentiate between the solid part of drawing (where OBJs can be rendered with correct shadows) and the translucent part of drawing (where alpha effects can be over-drawn without HDR artifacts). See this technote.

sim/graphics/view/plane_render_type

Plugin-Added Forces

New datarefs let your plugin add arbitrary forces to the aircraft – see this technote for more info on how to write them and how to share them.

sim/flightmodel/forces/fside_plug_acf

sim/flightmodel/forces/fnrml_plug_acf

sim/flightmodel/forces/faxil_plug_acf

sim/flightmodel/forces/L_plug_acf

sim/flightmodel/forces/M_plug_acf

sim/flightmodel/forces/N_plug_acf

Plugin-Added Electrical Bus Loads

Plugins can add custom electrical loads to any of X-Plane’s 6 buses via a new dataref:

sim/cockpit2/electrical/plugin_bus_load_amps

Please note that this dataref is not meant to be shared – only a plugin installed with the dataref can write to this because there is no provision for coordination between plugins.*

◾Increased limit on lateral view offset in the rendering options for offset monitors.

◾Commands to control APU bleed air.

◾Commands to toggle DME audio.

◾Commands and plugin datarefs to enable/disable TrackIR.

◾Option to automatically dismiss error messages for extra visuals and aircraft under control of an IOS.

◾Added commands for setting the directional gyros:

◾“sim/instruments/DG_sync_down”

◾“sim/instruments/DG_sync_up”

◾“sim/instruments/copilot_DG_sync_down”

◾“sim/instruments/copilot_DG_sync_up”

◾Added commands for helo governor and clutch:

◾“sim/engines/governor_on” ,”Throttle-governor on.”

◾“sim/engines/governor_off” ,”Throttle-governor off.”

◾“sim/engines/clutch_on” ,”Clutch on.”

◾“sim/engines/clutch_off” ,”Clutch off.”

◾Dome projection EXPERIMENT allowed without key. You can test dome and cylinder projection for your setup before buying a Pro Key.

◾Added commands and datarefs to control carriers and frigates from plugins better.

◾Added command for carrier cat-shot

◾Carriers are not replaced when they are under plugin control

◾Added internet output option for SkyDemon

◾Added FlyQ as a supported iPad app for X-Plane data output

◾Planet textures receive a one-notch resolution increase. This will help the look of the planet at a relatively low VRAM cost for most users.

New Features for Aircraft Authors

◾New equipment option in the special equipment in plane-maker: fire warning bell equipped! check this to get the fire bell. NOTE: previous versions of x-plane ALWAYS gave you a fire bell if there was an engine fire. Now, you must check this box to get that warning!

◾New Plane-Maker feature to not draw the OBJs, but draw the ACF flight-model geometry when editing so you can edit the acf and see what yor are doing without having the flight model geometry hidden by OBJ

◾Updated propeller control for turbo props: prop can now go into beta when pulled to idle, as real props do! Then, the prop goes into reverse when pulled aft over the gate. This is activated by a checkbox in Plane-Maker that must be checked in order to simulate that behavior of PT6-like turbo props.

◾Autopilot can now track nav courses based on GPS, LOC, OBS setting or heading bug, depending on type of autopilot. See the technote on autopilot sources for more info!

◾See the technote on HSI sources for more information on how to get the new GPS in your plane, and the new GPS technote on how the new GPS will interact with the autopilot.

◾Plane-Maker and Airfoil-Maker are available as 64-bit apps for Linux users.

◾Generic lights numbers 16-63 can now be used, for up to 64 generic lights on an aircraft. (In X-Plane 10.25 only the first 16 were independently controllable.)

◾Generic needle instrument can now take deflection sources for pitch. This lets you build a crude mechanical artificial horizon strictly out of generic instruments.

◾Attached objects have a new mode: “prefill only”. If all of the objects in your aircraft are too ‘heavy’ to do efficient cockpit prefilling (e.g. they have too many vertices or too many animations), you can make a new dedicated object that will be used only for prefill and crudely mask out most of the cockpit without users seeing it. The existing mode (object is used for prefill and drawn) is still available, and existing planes do not need any modifications.

◾The texture resolution check-boxes for attached objects correctly reflect how objects will be loaded when there is texture sharing between objects. If you set the “high res texture” option for one object, all objects sharing the texture receive the same setting.

◾GLOBAL_cockpit_lit now works with panel regions that are not a power of 2 or do not cover the entire 3-d panel. This was a screwy case for 3-d cockpits and did not work correctly in 10.25. If your panel’s UV map seems screwed up in 10.30, please contact Ben for advice on how to fix your aircraft.

New Features for Scenery Authors and Modelers

The “frame rate” data output now contains two fields: CPU and GPU. These times show the time the CPU and GPU spent drawing one frame (on average) in milliseconds. This means that not only can you tell whether your framerate is CPU or GPU limited (the larger number is the limiting factor), but you can tell the relative loading of the CPU and GPU, and you can measure improvements in CPU or GPU use even if they are not the dominant factor. GPU time on OS X is only available in OS X 10.9 and later.

There is a new art control “hdr/debug_lights” that, when set to 1, will show you the cone area of all spill lights. The cone area of the spill lights on screen is a good indicator of how much GPU power the spill light is taking. If your scenery or airplane is very slow at night in HDR mode, turn on light debugging and look for huge, wasteful spill light cones. If you can make these smaller you may improve GPU performance.

The road.net file format has a new directive LOCKED_POWERLINES – if put on its own line, it indicates that X-Plane should not attempt to “optimize” power-line tower placement for this road network. Instead, power line towers will be placed in every junction and vertex from the original data (in the DSF, with no extras added). You can use this directive if you want to cleanly control powerline tower placement when you generate your custom scenery.

DSFs now support multiple road.net files, including different road.net files in different overlay layers.

Autogen blocks contain a number of new features, including selectable sub-grids, to support development of the next update to the urban autogen art assets.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

◾Individual prop pitch controls (Prop1, Prop2, etc.) control only the prop they are assigned to.

◾Joystick centering logic handles joysticks with an offset center so they still have full control input.

◾Autopilot course tracking on VORs with an offset magvar now works correctly.

◾Accuracy improvements in long range VOR and glideslope tracking.

◾OBS knob operates the correct HSI when used with a fixed source HSI (e.g., HSI to Nav 1 only).

◾HSI source selector is reset to Nav 1 when a new aircraft is loaded.

◾Local map retains its zoom level when you use the weather menu.

◾“Show our ILS” and glideslope display in the local map identify the approach more reliably.

◾“Shutdown tailwind ILS” now works reliably in gusting crosswinds and doesn’t switch ILSs on and off every other second

◾Joystick buttons are now numbered consistently in the Basic and Advanced button assignment menus.

◾Save Situation and Save Replay work when “Save Preferences on Exit” is disabled.

◾Turning off “Save Preferences on Exit” no longer causes a crash warning on the next startup.

◾Aircraft count is automatically adjusted when you add multiplayer aircraft.

◾Multiplayer aircraft are removed from the environment when you turn off the IP connection.

◾Networked IOS now reliably loads aircraft and airports on the student machine.

◾Space Shuttle: Initial speed for the final approach is set to the correct 300 kias.

◾Custom chord offsets in V9 aircraft import correctly into V10.

◾Trim speed in V9 aircraft imports correctly into V10.

◾Retracted angle setting for fuselage mounted speedbrakes is back in PlaneMaker.

◾Brake response more realistic, with the whole plane not being held back by just a smidgeon of brakes if the craft was stopped before

◾The FCU (fuel control unit) of turbo props now takes the highest of throttle and backup throttle, like it does on a real PT-6

◾The sync real-time checkbox is no longer required for Xavion

◾Corrected depiction of landing gear deflection in Plane Maker

◾Changed a constant to get the transonic drag down just a hair, as it needs to be according to testing with the citation X, and a (real) F-18 pilot testing with the falcon 7-X indicates that this is needed for the high-subsonic aircraft

◾Joystick UI shows that null zone applies to toe brakes and it does indeed apply to toe brakes

◾Reverse thrust sound variation much reduced, as per notes from numerous real pilots

◾Manual weather-dragging scaled better now, you can get levels of thunderstorms and clouds much more readily

◾Planes used to lean off to the right ever so slightly. It turned out this was due to an error in the computation of flow along the spar direction in cases where wings had dihedral – Some component of this lateral flow took an axial component after sweep was applied, so the right wings were moving slightly slower than they should have been the effect was a fraction of a knot, but till just enough to lean the plane to the right a hair. That is now fixed!

◾Turn coordinator now reflects bank rate as well as turn rate to give a more immediate response, as does the real one

◾The data output was not showing the total bus amperages correctly since it was displaying the data while it was still in the process of being summed. Now, we show the total bus loads in the data output

◾Added nominal bus voltages to the Flight Data Recorder so we can see what the plane is doing

◾Improved eagle claw gears to look better, considering the pitch of the aircraft, and to handle the inverted eagle claw case as well

◾When running a REAL Garmin GPS and NAV/COM hardware unit from X-Plane, failures now are properly labelled, and functional in the way you would normally expect. Also, the setting of the left input to go into COM or VLOC is now available as a dataref

◾Fixed pro-use key mis-match message across a network to indicate what PC has a key, and what one does not, to help debugging what machine needs a key

◾Set visibility lower limit to 100 meters, as per the minimums for a Cat-3 approach, and the lowest vis that you can encounter in clouds

◾Failure screen shows only air inlet heat failures for engines that we actually have, and put them in engines: de-ice where they belong

◾Fixed a bug in anchoring sea-planes: the anchor was not always dropped where the flight was started. Now the anchor should go to the right place when seaplanes start (no matter how they start: placed by menu, dragged on the map, whatever)

◾Ice now accumulates mass on the aircraft with something closer to surface area than aircraft weight, so that is more realistic

◾New METAR-interpretation engine from Xavion: It is now much much more robust, and capable of handling online weather data from European and Russian reports just fine as well!

◾Flap handle and flap surfaces now follow the Flight Data Recorder properly now, so you can analyze accidents caused by flap failures properly in replay.

◾Transmission temperature comes up at a more realistic rate, getting to terminal temperature in a reasonable time-frame

◾New variable added to the electrical accessors to let people add their own bus voltage if they like, as per various requests.

◾The new dataref is: sim/cockpit2/electrical/plugin_bus_load_amps float[4] this is bus load that a plugin can add to the total loads, if desired

◾If an electrical bus is down due to failure or under-voltage, then it will not build up amperage, which should be more realistic

◾A new dataref sim/cockpit2/switches/rotor_brake_ratio float is now avail to control the amount of rotor brake being applied

◾Clarified the various settings for FADEC and critical altitude in Plane-Maker

◾Commands to move prop governor #1 no longer affect all props by mistake

◾Datarefs added for winch control, to control the line length, ramp-up time, and speed

◾ATIS works even if both com1 and com2 audio monitor are selected, as it should in the real plane

◾Improved simulating the physics of VOR needles and flags better, especially visible when switching between sources for a mechanical HSI

◾Added command to bring up acf load menu

◾Fixed the autopilot and instruments and added datarefs to make the GPS 2 (co-pilot GPS) useable.

◾Direction of heat blur is fixed! You don’t need to change your aircraft; the heat blur will simply be drawn in the expected direction of exhaust.

◾VRAM optimized for non-power-of-2 3-d panels.

◾CDI deflection range on needle generic instrument fixed.

◾Fixed black line in the center of the screen when HDR is enabled and the window is an odd number of pixels tall.

◾Lit level on generic triggers now work.

◾CPU type is correctly logged for OSX.

◾AI airplanes should pick different start locations at gate. Warning: if your airport layout has too few gates, the airports will stack up. You may need to add more gates to the airport. This fix will only work when there are enough gate slots.

◾Reading of manipulators used to take place between the solid and blended phase of darwing; this could cause animations to appear out of sync between parts of the plane in the 3-d cockpit. Animations are now always in sync between the different parts of the plane.